Limbaugh? A Brainwashed Child? Sellouts? The Real Future of the Republican Party
Where do I begin? The debacle known as CPAC, where a group of very misguided individuals met to spread half truths and basic contempt for their country (add sedition to this year's gala) has come and gone again. And it's not the conference that really was the debacle this year, no, it was its typical train wreck of wrong ideas and bloated, antiquated ideologies and sheer projection where they vilify the very behavior they inflict.
No, it was the coverage by the media, the credibility given to the speakers and the unchallenged comments in most of the mainstream media that was horrifying at best and a complete breach of the public's trust at worst.
Let's start with the conference itself. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News...each said in describing the event that "Its website says it is the largest gathering of conservatives in the nation..." Umm, OK. But is it really? Isn't your job to tell us more than what they say? I mean, my website could say I'm the most listened to man in America, doesn't make it so. And everybody's profile on every website says they weigh 20 pounds less than they really do. Since when is the truth of a political action committee's website, a PAC whose panels includes such gems as "Al Franken and ACORN: How Liberals Are Destroying The American Electoral System" or "Media In the Obama Generation: Is Journalism Dead?" not questioned. They may be right about the dead journalism if that reporting is any indication of its current livelihood.
Then there's the whoopla over a 13-year-old conservative child who authored a book. I won't say his name, as I consider what is being done to him child abuse, but really people...this is where new leaders are coming from? We wouldn't let a 13 year old drive us to the store or drive a train, yet one is credible enough to have an opinion on politics, world affairs and social issues? Listening to the youth of America is one thing, brainwashing them in to a rigid ideology and making them reminiscent of the youth movement in Germany prior to WWII is another.
The "highlight" of the gala was Rush Limbaugh, a recovered (?) criminal drug addict who pimped out his maid to get his hands on illegal opiates in mass quantities, drugs that made him need surgery so he could hear, and behavior that would have landed a mere mortal in jail (which he, himself, condoned). This savior of the people stood before the nation for hours on CNN, as if he were a newsmaker we needed to hear. Like me, he's a talk show host. Nothing more. He has no political street credibility other than he talks about it a lot. He's a mean, rotund, cigar-smoking conservative Oprah. Funny, when she speaks at events CNN doesn't cover them wall-to-wall.
In any event, he urged his millions of listeners to continue wishing for the failure of President Barack Obama and his administration's policies. He stated Dems wanted Bush to fail. Yes, all Americans should have, he was and is a war criminal and his regime bankrupted a nation socially and financially and robbed it of all credibility throughout the world. Left a smoldering mess of ashes and debris; a country raped and pillaged for eight years laid waste by neoconservatives with no morals and nothing but contempt for people not like themselves.
I can see the comparison.
Afterwards, the abomination didn't stop. CNN had a roundtable of Republicans to talk about the events, and not one person challenged anything said by these people.
It was then I realized the level of hypocrisy in this country is going to reach critical mass and explode if someone doesn't start hip-checking these people a la Number 747 the big Earline Brown of the Los Angeles T-Birds (yes, I watched roller derby).
These people sat by happy while Bush and their party devastated us. Now, they sit and project their behavior on Democrats and openly wish for the failure of the very country in which they live. They throw events to basically talk about another coup like the one of 2000 and make their intentions to "return to the America of the past, the America we were all born in to..." My hair bristles at the repetition of that ludicrous remark by Limbaugh. All born in to. Describes them perfectly. What about legal immigrants and naturalized citizens, you SCHMUCK!!!
Make it known to the media outlets that we demand they begin to give these seditionists the same treatment those who opposed the war got during the early days of Iraq. Remember calls of "Un-American" and people being called "unpatriotic" if they said Bush was wrong and the war unjust. If you didn't support it, you didn't support our troops, wanted them to die. Meanwhile, they were dying needlessly, understaffed, underfunded, no planning...
It's time to stop allowing these people to speak unchallenged. The time of civility is over. Our nation is all but lost.
To Rush and every attendee at CPAC I offer you the same invitation I am quite sure Thomas Jefferson or John Adams would: start seeing America for what it can and wants to be, free, united, harmonious and start working towards the better of all people, black, white, straight, gay, all Americans whether they look like you, earn what you do, or not or simply get on a lovely ship and go off the Spice Islands. Well, nowadays, how about you go and occupy Iraq. Go build your world of strict religious rule, protracted morality and over inflated sense of self importance.
We've got your mess to clean up here and we don't need you sitting around telling us a: how we're getting it wrong and b: how you can do it better.
As my mom would say, either grab the mop and start helping or get the hell out of the kitchen.
I vote for the latter.
Oh wait, we already did.